The one where Jessica almost has sex.

#5, All Night Long*

Tagline: "Is Jessica as grown-up as she thinks she is?" Answer: no, definitively.

This book is a Sweet Valley classic for many reasons. First, you have the cover, with Jessica looking all whorey and "Scott Daniels" looking like a total porn star, and also, thirty-eight years old, at least. And then you have the fact that this book features booze, drug use, cursing ("Damn!" but still) and very explicit almost-sex, and I just want to remind you of the fact that on the title page, it says very clearly, RL 6, IL age 12 and up. 12! I read this when I was about twelve and I remember thinking, "Wow, I am really too young to be reading this." If I recall correctly, the librarian refused to check it out to me because she thought I was too young, but my mom got all FREEDOM OF SPEECH on her ass, and so I got it anyway. Did I mention my mom's name is Alice? And she's an interior designer and a perfect size six?

The book opens with Jessica sneaking out on a school night, no less, to go to a beach party at Secca Lake with Scott Daniels, who is "eighteen, but Elizabeth suspected [Jessica] had conveniently shaved a year or two from his real age in order to convince their parents he wasn't too old for her." I want you to tear your eyes from this fascinating, wittily-written sentence and look up again at the picture of "Scott Daniels" on the cover. Yeah. Jessica shaved a decade or two off, or something. Because no way in hell is that dude 18. He's not even Hollywood 18, which is usually like 25. Anyway, besides a glorious porn moustache, Scott has a tomato red Firebird, and he has a reputation for holding "grown-up pajama parties...with everyone wearing nightshirts and nightgowns and the floor strewn with mattresses." Now Scott sounds like Hugh Hefner. Elizabeth is concerned that Jessica is going out with this dude, as she should be, and tries to make her promise to be back by curfew. What's that I hear? Oh, that's just Jessica laughing as she zooms off into the night with her geriatric porn-star boyfriend.

But the joke is on Jessica, because Scott turns out to be a total tool and also sort rapey, to boot. They swim for a while, and then someone lights a joint and they're all drinking beer, and Scott takes Jessica to an abandoned shack in the woods, where he tries to have sex with her. He, and I quote, "slipped a hand down the back of [Jessica's] bikini bottom." He is touching her bare ass, you guys. That is the closest anybody in these books comes to sex, EVER, even the married people like Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield (not that I want to read about that). Jessica freaks out and demands that Scott give her the car keys, because it's late, and she doesn't want to have sex, and she needs to get home. Scott tells her no, that he's going to keep her out ALL NIGHT LONG and then passes out because he's drunk, and here is our first inkling that Elizabeth got the brains in the family (including, like, the ones that were supposed to go to her parents) because Jessica just cries that she is stranded, instead of stealing the unconscious guy's keys and driving herself home.

Elizabeth wakes up the next morning to find Jessica still out and instead of going to her parents and telling them that Jess has probably been raped or murdered by a 55-year-old with a suspicious moustache, she decides that the most important thing is that her parents think Jess is upstairs sleeping as usual, so that Jessica doesn't get grounded and get mad at her. So she goes downstairs and pretends to leave for school, then sneaks back upstairs and dresses in a miniskirt, and pretends to be Jessica. She makes conversation with her mother, as Jessica, and Alice is pretty easily fooled, and offers the most hilarious line in the book. Alice mentions that she hopes her daughter will never have twins, and Elizabeth says, "I don't plan on it," like, does she mean that she will get an abortion if she ever gets pregnant with them? It would be just one more SCANDAL to rock this book. But then Alice gives a weary sigh and says, "Neither did I, Jessica. Neither did I." Ha! Alice is a beaten woman.

The big deal that day at school is that the twins are supposed to take their driver's ed tests to get their licenses, even though they have been driving everywhere alone since this series started, like, on their permits? Whatever. Elizabeth takes her test and then she decides she'll have to take the test for Jessica, who hasn't shown up yet. Todd reminds her that that's cheating, and Elizabeth gets mad at him, and then they break up, and when she goes in to take the test as Jessica, she's upset and she bombs it. When Jessica finally shows up at school she finds she's failed and she is mad at Elizabeth. Instead of telling her to FUCK HERSELF, Elizabeth apologizes, and then writes in her journal about what a horrible twin she is, and how Jessica hates her now. But the teacher agrees to let Jess retake the test since she was so "sick" and upset when she took it the first time and all is well.

Elizabeth goes to the beach to cover a surfing championship for The Oracle, where her classmate Bill Chase, who would totally have smoked weed if he went to my high school, is competing. He wins, and Enid suggests a title for Elizabeth's article on his victory: "Rocky of the Deep." Instead of telling her that's stupid, Elizabeth says she's already got the perfect title: Chase is One. They're both stupid, but I like Enid's for the sheer incoherentness and the outdated pop-culture reference. Todd shows up and apologizes for calling Elizabeth a cheater, even though she was one, and they're back together, and again, I think Jessica learned a very important lesson about not almost having sex with senior citizens, and staying out ALL NIGHT LONG. Except not really, at all.

What they wore: "This would look really sexy with my red shorts," Jessica said, holding up a scrap of lacy white cloth as she smiled sweetly at her twin. "You don't mind, do you Lizzie?" What is Elizabeth Wakefield doing with a lacy white anything, unless it's a nightgown that comes down to her ankles, Little House on the Prairie-style? GHOSTWRITERS! SHE IS THE BORING ONE! Also, I wish that these girls would not wear shorts so much. I am firmly of the belief that your shorts time is over once you hit puberty. I know these girls are perfect size sixes, but that does not preclude cellulite, as I have discerned from many hours of viewing Real Housewives of Orange County. It's safer just to stay away from them, unless you are ten and on your way to Camp Minnehaha for the first time. But Jessica has bigger problems than shorts in this book so I won't dwell.

Because here is what she wears to her lake-date with Scott "Grandpa" Daniels, under the shorts and lacy white halter: She wears a red string bikini. I am not of the school of thought that tries to imply that sluttily-dressed women deserve to be raped, but all the same, I can sort of see where Scott got the idea that she'd be into sex, wearing that and acting the way she does. Another girl at the party is wearing a chamois bikini. I am not convinced. Also, Ms. Chamois has cornrowed blond hair and is a dead ringer for Bo Derek. I am just not sure about her all around.

We have a twin switch this episode, so we get a nice compare-and-contrast of outfits that the twins would normally wear to school. When she goes down to have breakfast with her parents as herself, Elizabeth wears old jeans worn to a velvety softness and yanked a long-sleeved T-shirt over her head. Quickly she combed her wet hair and secured it with a tortoiseshell clip on either side. She [jammed] her feet into a pair of moccasins. I have a hard time blasting on this outfit, because I own every piece of it, myself, down to the moccasins which are soft and beaded and worn to the shape of my foot, and in which I can move soundlessly, like a Native American stalking a deer. They are great shoes for snooping. I even have toirtoiseshell clips, but I do NOT wear one on either side of my head, like I did when I was in second grade, so I'll rip on Liz for that. LIZ WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?

As Jessica she wears a short, bias-cut skirt and matching striped top that was one of Jessica's favorite outfits. A bias-cut skirt that is extremely short sounds dangerous to me. The way it hangs, when you sit down, it sounds like people could see your underwear pretty easily. And what is up with Jessica's love of stripes? In my mind, stripes are only appropriate if you are 1) wearing your pajamas, 2) a charming French girl with a beret and a baguette tucked under your arm, or 3) an inmate in a federal prison. I have a feeling, an innate feeling, too, that these stripes are horizontal, and that makes everything bigger, and once again, not even the size sixes are safe.

Dana Larsen, lead singer of the Droids, is all we get for wild and crazy outfits until Olivia Davidson fully comes into her hippy-artyness. In this book, Olivia's brown curls [are] peeping out from underneath a vibrant purple scarf, which isn't much, but is at least a step in the right direction. Dana, however, is wearing one of her usual outrageous get ups: an oversize T-shirt over a red-striped miniskirt; purple tights; and black suede ankle boots. An enormous gold loop dangled from one pierced earlobe; the other sported a tiny silver star. Well, how Claudia Kishi of her! Ann M. Martin is writing a strongly worded letter as we speak.

*Again, #4, Power Play, has been loaned out but is on its way back to me. Woo! Review is forthcoming.

Welcome to the SV, bitch!

Tagline: "Share the continuing story of the Wakefield twins and their friends--their laughter, heartaches, and dreams." And cocaine overdoses. And brushes with death. And all around-shenanigans! Can't wait!

I love the Sweet Valley High series so much, y'all. You remember when that book came out, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? Well, everything I need to know I learned from Sweet Valley. If you're shipwrecked? You can use your fourteen-karat bracelet to signal a plane! Also I learned that fat girls can be popular if they just become anorexics and lose a lot of weight. And if someone has a scar, they are probably a murderer. Are you taking notes? You should be writing this down. Because it will all come in handy in your life, trust me.

Before we get started, you need to meet Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, who will be our guides on this important journey, like Beatrice was for Dante. Liz and Jess are sixteen-year-old girls who live in Sweet Valley, California, and they are identical twins! They have "the same shoulder-length, sun-streaked blond hair, the same sparkling blue-green eyes, the same perfect skin. Even the tiny dimple in Elizabeth's left cheek was duplicated in her younger sister's--younger by four minutes. Both girls were five feet six on the button and generously blessed with spectacular, All-American good looks. Both wore exactly the same size clothes, but they refused to dress alike, except for the exquisite identical lavelieres they wore on gold chains around their necks." How will you ever learn to tell them apart, you ask? Don't worry! Elizabeth wants to be a writer, so she is always off doing boring writerly things. She's also very nosy, and wears a wristwatch. Jessica is an evil, boyfriend-stealing ho, and behaves accordingly. There's very little overlap between the two. (If you're trying to judge by the cover, Elizabeth is the prissy-looking one in white; Jessica is the one with the crazy eyes and Donald Trump bangs.)

Do you know how people say there are only seven original plots in the world? Well, in Sweet Valley, there are more like five. This very first book in the series is a variation on the most recurrent one: Elizabeth realizes she is boring and put upon, and rebels in some quiet way, before going back to her old boring habits. In this case she's blue because has a secret crush on Todd Wilkins, but Jessica likes him too, oh no! Elizabeth tries to make a move, but before she can, Jessica does, and she's more interesting and doesn't part her bangs down the middle and Liz has missed her chance. The whole school is talking about how the captain of the basketball team and the co-captain of the cheerleading squad are an item!

But Jessica isn't a one-man kind of woman, and before you know it, she's allowed bad-boy Rick Andover (who is a dropout, OMG) to take her to Kelly's roadhouse for a beer. I love the early books in this series, because they are all for ages twelve and up, and all contain mention of booze, drugs, and sex. Rick acts like a total creep to Jessica, and she ends up getting busted by a cop, who drives her home, and mistakenly calls her Elizabeth as he drops her off. Caroline Pearce, the school gossip, hears this and the next day at school everybody thinks it was Elizabeth who was out drinking with Rick. Elizabeth is upset by this, not because her teachers and her friends and her parents might hear and get mad at her, but because now Todd might think she's a floozy. Which he does. Jessica tries to clear up the mixup but Todd thinks she's trying to take the blame for her wayward sister, and asks her to the upcoming school dance, and makes out with her, just as Liz comes out and sees. She has a meltdown: "Liz Wakefield is supposed to be good, sweet, kind, generous...do you know what that adds up to? Boring, boring, boring!" And...I can't argue with her, there. Neither can her mother, who just tells Liz that she "understands." Good work, Mom.

B and C plot time! The twins' older brother Steven Wakefield is behaving oddly and Jessica knows he's in love, but she's appalled when she finds out that his new girlfriend is Betsy Martin, who "has been doing drugs for years" and "sleeps around." The twins are crushed. It will "ruin" the Wakefields, Jessica wails, to be associated with a family like the Martins. Which is a bit rich coming from an underage girl who was at Kelly's with Rick Andover less than 24 hours before. I'm just saying, it's not such a huge leap. And then the twins realize that their father, an attorney, has been working late and talking a lot about his colleague, Marianna West, lately. This could just mean he's, you know, busy, but the twins jump to the conclusion that he must be having an affair.

Time for the dance! Jess is going with Todd, and Elizabeth is going with Winston Egbert, whose name should tell you all you need to know about him. Jessica notices, at the dance, that Todd can't take his eyes off of Elizabeth, and she's pissed, so when she gets home, she tells Elizabeth that it's over with Todd, because he tried to molest her, which is a pretty serious accusation, and could ruin Todd's life. Elizabeth is duly appalled. When Todd calls to try to say he likes her, she shuts him down because she thinks he's a perv.

It turns out that Steven wasn't actually dating Betsy Martin--he was dating Betsy's sister, Tricia. Dating because apparently rampant snobbery runs in families. He was kind of critical of Tricia's family and she called him out on it and dumped him. Steven is upset, but his parents and his sisters counsel him to go and tell Tricia that he loves her. He drives over to her "saggy-roofed ranch house,"--that's how you know the Martins are really bad, because they don't have enough money to keep their house up nice, like GOD--and Tricia takes him back, but if it were me? I'd still be pissed he was a dick about my family.

There's some bullshit rigmarole with a court case involving the school football field--Lila Fowler's rich dad wants to build a factory on it--but it's really just contrivance so that Liz and Jess can go downtown and see their father at trial with Marianna West. They are chagrined--CHAGRINED--to see Ned "being so attentive [to Marianna], leaning over with his head next to hers, whispering heaven knows what into her ear!" LIKE THINGS ABOUT THE CASE? Have these girls never seen a courtroom drama? Do they think that he is propositioning her, there, in the courtroom? After they win the court case, Mr. Wakefield invites Marianna home for dinner, and reveals that the reason he's been working late is because he was trying to help her get a promotion. And I wasn't before, but now I'm suspicious, because that sounds like the lamest, most half-assed excuse ever. If my husband said something like that to me, I'd start smashing his shit with his golf clubs, Elin-Woods style, but the twins--and their mother--just toast Marianna on her new job!

The next day, Liz and Jess are driving home from school, and nasty Rick Andover is chasing their Fiat in a stolen car. They stop at a light and he totally carjacks them, and drives them to Kelly's. Todd Wilkins sees them go by and catches sight of Elizabeth's terrified face, and it's Todd to the rescue! He saves them, and Elizabeth and Todd have a moment, and Elizabeth confesses that she's liked Todd all along, and Todd confesses that he didn't try to rape Jessica. The tone in their conversation is all laughy like, "That Jessica and her antics!" but if I were Todd I'd be really, really angry and probably not willing to get involved with the sister of a girl who tried to get me sent to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for twenty-five and change. Todd and Liz just laugh it off, and decide that Jessica needs to be put in her place. Again, if it were me, I'd try to push her into therapy, but they decide on something else.

Which is this: you see, Liz has been writing the Eyes and Ears gossip column for the SVH newspaper, The Oracle, and it's been a secret, but it's all going to be revealed at a pool party in a few days time. Liz decides that she will pull a twin switch, and loans Jessica some clothes, so that people will think Jess is Liz and throw Jess into the pool! Which will certainly teach her an important lesson about falsely accusing people of sexual assault. All's well that ends well!

What they wore: I just pressed my best jeans today and my blue button down shirt that you've been dying to borrow, Elizabeth tells Jessica, and LOL, she irons her jeans, but also here we are confronted for the first time with the Sweet Valley High Paradox, which is that if Elizabeth is so boring, and you can tell she's boring from the clothes she wears, why would Jessica want to borrow them all the time? And that is a particularly dull Elizabeth outfit. At the beginning of the series, Francine Pascal hadn't so much set in stone that Elizabeth's uniform consists solely of Bermuda shorts and polo shirts and barettes, but there's still no explanation as to why Liz would own a "tuxedo shirt...and the pants...and the little bow tie" to go along with it. Because that is a snazzy outfit, and besides one or two of Olivia Davidson's craziest ensembles, probably the best outfit that occurs in this series, ever.

Jessica, on the other hand, is full of fashion fail in this book. For her date with Rick Andover at Kelly's, she took the trouble to curl her hair and put on her sexiest red blouse. So far, so good. As a natural curly-haired person, I will never understand why anybody with straight hair would want to inflict that on themselves, but the red shirt was a good choice. But then Jess borrowed her sister's (there we go again!) brand-new black sandal heels to go with her black silk jersey skirt. I am a big fan of silk jersey, because it can be dressed up, or down, but do you know what it is never appropriate for? Underage binge-drinking at a sleazy roadhouse. Nice, Jess. You're going to look like a hooker for sure.

For the dance, Elizabeth's dress actually sounds kind of pretty: the white strapless dress was perfect with her tanned skin and blond hair. Jessica's dress is blue and slinky, with a handkerchief hemline, spaghetti straps, and a neckline so low Todd will be panting! Now I like blue. As a brown-eyed brunette, probably not as much as the next person. And I like low necklines, because I am a big-boobed girl, myself, and I believe in smoking if you got 'em. A handkerchief hemline I am willing to give a pass on, because it's 1984, here, but spaghetti straps? They're gross. They're so skinny and...there. Like string over your shoulders. And it's hard to wear a regular bra with them, but that could just be me, because of the boobs, and now you all know far too much about my chest area so I'll stop talking about it. But do you know who wears spaghetti straps? That girl from your high school who was in Crossroads and was "modest" and wore a promise ring, and was a "virgin" because she didn't sleep with guys, but she did absolutely everything else. People are afraid to go strapless because they think it's trashy, but it can be tasteful, and it's better than spaghetti straps! I promise!!

My point? I just want to point out that it is rare when I covet anything belonging to Elizabeth over Jessica. And I also want to point out that Steven Wakefield comes in while Jess is describing the plunging neckline that will "make Todd pant" and instead of saying "Jesus God, gross me out," he says, "As a man, I feel sorry for the intended victim." Which is really creepy, and not the last time Steven makes a vaguely sexual comment like that to his sisters.

Ugh. I need to get this awful taste out of my mouth. OK. That wicked homewrecker Marianna West is "looking positively radiant in an ice-blue suit." I cannot condone an ice-blue suit because I am a law student, and I know that suits come in black and gray and navy and THAT IS ALL, but I am positively shocked that the ghostwriter refrained from having Ms. West show up in court with ripped fishnets, red high heels, and a cigarette in a long ivory holder, that she smokes while stroking her Dalmation-pelt fur coat and cackling, "I'll have you, Ned Wakefield! WHERE ARE THOSE PUPPIES?" I'm just saying, points for restraint.